This Sunday at 9:36 A.M., Dominion will be kicking off its annual Generosity Feeds food packaging drive. Three Dominion students—Emma Straub, Riley Chugg, and Zain Safdar—have organized the event in hopes of packaging 20,000 meals or more for impoverished families in the Sterling area.

Generosity Feeds is a Virginia-based nonprofit organization which advertises its program’s ability to “package 10,000 or more meals in just a couple hours.” Under the leadership of DHS’s DECA program, Dominion’s ‘Gen Feeds’ drive has far exceeded that number. Last year, over 28,000 meals were put together in the Dominion Gym by 750 local volunteers.

In past years, the Generosity Feeds drive has packaged meals for families at Whitman Middle School, Catoctin Elementary School, St. David’s Episcopal Church, and the LCPS Backpack program. While working with Generosity Feeds, volunteers—which range from Girl Scout troops to sports teams—package dry food to be sent to local families in need.

Due to the new LCPS fundraising rules, Generosity Feeds will be unable to package nearly as many meals it did last year, as students were unable to raise outside funds for the event. “It’s very sad,” Straub said, “since the money we would’ve raised would’ve gone to hungry students in the Dominion cluster area. Not a lot of people realize that there’s so many people [without food] even though we live in the nation’s richest county.” Students and parents can still donate directly to the event, however. “One dollar equals one meal,” Straub said. “It’s a good cause.”

Registration for the event itself was capped at 450 volunteers and is already closed. Still, students can sign up to set-up for the event at 5 p.m. on Saturday, November 5^th. “We want volunteers to know they’re making a direct difference in their own community,” Straub said. “And, it’s fun!”